Owing to the extreme respect by which women had been held, the royal princesses occupied an exalted station and therefore found keen instruments for the carrying-out of their merciless practices. Women entered into matrimonial alliances with a view to growing their energy and extending their influence. Aristotle remarks that the ancient kingship survived solely among the Spartans, the Molossians, and the Macedonians, of all the Greek peoples; and solely among the many last mentioned did the office retain all its prerogatives. As in the Heroic Age, so in Macedon, the king was supreme decide, military commander-in-chief, and at the head of the faith of the State. The individuals had been conscious of their liberty and delicate as to their rights.
Women In Antiquity
These unfortunate women had been gathered from the slave markets of Samos, Lesbos, Cyprus, and the Ionian cities, where yearly giant numbers of wretched human beings, who had been torn from their houses, usually on account of war, had been uncovered on the market. These included many young girls who had been taken captive within the sacking of cities or had been stolen from their properties by the fiends in human kind who made it a business to secure maidens of promising magnificence or charm for the bawdy homes of the Greek cities. From these markets, too, came often the hetæræ of the second class, who had been likewise slaves, but had been the property of panders or procuresses, who bought girls of tender age and educated them for the sake of the wealth to be acquired from site visitors in lust. Aged and faded hetæræ, who had passed their lives in gross licentiousness and had lastly lost their maintain on the public, particularly devoted themselves to this horrible commerce. They owned their very own houses, and had at the side of them common colleges or institutes for the training of hetæræ.
The most striking characteristic of social life within the Hellenistic Age was its cosmopolitan character, reminding one of many European culture of to-day. We know virtually nothing of the life of the peoples of the different nationalities, but the historical past of the occasions deals largely with the courts of the rulers, and with the wars and commercial rivalries of contending powers.
Young Women
From these institutes often emerged younger women who performed an essential position within the social and intellectual life of the day, as Leontium, Gnathæna, Pythionice, and others. The names of certain of these establishments are preserved, as these of Nicarete, of Bacchis, and of the Thracian Sinope, who removed her institute from Ægina to Athens.
Girls in such institutions remained at all times within the relation of slaves, and were compelled all the time to surrender to the mistresses or the panders the funds they collected from the sale of their favors. As younger girls they acted as musicians or dancers on the banquets of the lads, and as they developed into womanhood they entered upon their careers as regular courtesans. Often they were employed out for a considerable time; or if a good purchaser presented himself, they had been offered outright, and lived because the kept mistress of a single lover. From him they often obtained their freedom, in time, either as a mark of favor, or as the readiest means of ridding himself of a burden when the lover had wearied of the hetæra’s charm.
Cleopatra’s intimate relations with Rome’s biggest men, and the conversion of her kingdom into a Roman province after her dying, however emphasize the truth that all Hellenistic lands have been at that time in the energy of Rome and that the interval of Græco-Roman tradition had begun a lot earlier. 146 had occurred the destruction of Corinth and the absorption of Old Greece into a part of the Roman province of Macedon, and from that time Rome exerted a marked influence over the social lifetime of Hellas. One of the chief characteristics of this age was the freer life of girls of all courses. Even in Athens and Boeotia, the mistress of the house obtained her rights as mom and hostess.
Greece
By the aspect of the king stood the nobles, who had been carefully related to him always, constituting his council, accompanying him to struggle, and sharing with him his risks and his honors. As the inhabitants was largely rural, there were present not one of the situations which are inclined to nullify clan distinctions and create a democracy. Hence, Macedon was primarily a dynastic State, and its history is basically the historical past of its royal family.
In these institutes the girls were educated in physical tradition, in music and dancing, and frequently in all the branches of studying that were in style on the time. They turned experts in all the arts of pleasure, and have been supplied every advantage that might make them pleasing to men.
History
The reputation of her beauty occasioned in a short time a formidable immigration to Corinth of probably the most wealthy and distinguished men, partly to get pleasure from her favor, partly to gaze in wonder at her charms, and partly to review this paragon of female beauty for imitation in works of art. From the homage that she acquired, and especially the wealth that was poured at her toes by her lovers, she was quickly rendered so proud and egocentric that she secluded herself from all besides the richest.
As we now have incessantly noted, in monarchies woman is ever a most influential factor, A king must have a court, and there may be no court docket without a queen. The queen’s life has necessarily its public, political, and army elements; and the part she performs largely determines the weal or woe of each king and folks. Hence it is with the royal household of Macedon, and with those queens and princesses who make up a large a part of its history, that we at the moment are chiefly concerned.
She took a fancy to the Cynic philosopher Diogenes, despite his filth and brusqueness; and Ælian tells the story of her inclination for a younger athlete, Eubatas of Cyrene, who had come to Corinth for the video games, leaving behind a most beautiful and beloved wife. There have been in Athens, within the fifth and fourth centuries, four lessons of hetæræ, graded in accordance with political standing. The first and lowest class was that of the public prostitute–slaves purchased by the State for the public homes, which have been taxed for the advantage of the town and have been beneath the supervision of city inspectors.
Perhaps it was in imitation of what they saw in Rome, perhaps it was merely the natural process of evolution, but, at any fee, the recognition of the capabilities and the elevated place of woman was common. Plutarch is the best chronicler of Greek life in the first century after the Christian period, and his works abound in precepts on the relations of the sexes, in whose equality he was a firm greece girls believer, and on the proper coaching and schooling of woman. His own spouse, Timoxena, paid visits and obtained friends even when her husband was absent, shared fully the intellectual life of her husband, and took part in all his public pursuits.
We find henceforth a combination of Greek manners and Macedonian nature. In the lifetime of the courts, women as well as men, in spite of their Greek tradition, present the Thracian traits of passion and cruelty.
As we now have incessantly noticed in previous chapters, the standing of woman under the old monarchical governments was an elevated and influential one. A few general reflections will prepare us for the sombre history which we are about to read. The Macedonian kings were, as a rule, not content with one wife; they either stored concubines, or married a second wife, as did Philip and Alexander, whereas the primary was dwelling. This practice led to jealousy, envy, and hatred, and the attendant ills of fixed and bloody tragedies in the royal families.
